Connect the Dots

by Keith Calabrese

Then he crept to the door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and slowly, hesitantly, poked his head in the room.

  “Hello?” he said. “I’m here to dump your trash for you.”

  No one was there.

  What was there, on a stand in the far corner of the room, was a Gibson Les Paul. One-piece mahogany neck, ebony finish, the Black Beauty herself. Billy couldn’t help himself; the guitar pulled him inside. It took all his self-control not to touch it, to pick it up.

  Billy looked around the room. Two gold records and a vintage playbill for a rock show in London hung on the wall above the bed. On the dresser, several framed pictures of snarling figures in leather jackets and torn clothes stared back at him. The pictures were old, most were black and white, and Billy thought he recognized some of the people in them. Mostly they were men, but one woman with spiked black hair was in all the pictures.

  Billy returned his gaze to the playbill on the wall and suddenly it clicked …

  “Oi, what do you think you’re doing in my room!”

  Billy knew that he should be afraid. The furious look on the woman’s face suggested that when she was done with him, he’d be grateful for whatever punishment Mrs. Gonzales would dream up for him for snooping around one of the rooms. But not only wasn’t he afraid, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling, now that he knew who the mystery resident of room 217 really was.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you, you little—”

  “This is you!” Billy said, picking up one of the pictures on the dresser. “You’re Bad Becky!”

  “Put that down!” the woman growled.

  Billy did as he was told.

  The woman gave Billy a suspicious look. “You know who I am?” she said.

  “Are you kidding? My parents have all your albums. I’ve got you on my phone, too.”

  He went to show her his phone, but she made a disgusted face like he should put it away. “Yeah, I know,” he shrugged. “Nothing beats vinyl, but what are you going to do?”

  She just stared at Billy, not saying anything as the boy swayed a little from right to left. He wasn’t used to feeling giddy or carrying the lion’s share of a conversation. “Um, my name’s Billy. Billy Fargus,” he said, extending his hand.

  The angry lady looked at it for a moment, then took it. “Becky Tillman,” she said.

  “It’s great to meet you, ma’am. Really,” Billy said. “But aren’t you kinda young to be in assisted living?”

  “It ain’t the years, kid. It’s the mileage.”

  “Sorry for intruding,” Billy pressed on. “I came to empty your trash and saw your guitar. Is it a ’59?”

  “Nope. It’s a ’58,” she said warily.

  “Wow. Third humbucker and all? Sorry … I play. Well, I used to.”

  “Used to,” Bad Becky said. “You don’t anymore?”

  Billy shrugged. “I had to quit. My dad got moved to nights, and my mom’s on days. So now I can’t make my lessons.”

  Bad Becky’s scowl softened into something that was, well, still a scowl, but one tinged with empathy for the little trespasser.

  He’d dodged a bullet, but Frankie was in a sour mood. For the last half hour, Steve and Frankie’s mom had been sitting on the couch, drinking iced tea, and yammering away like old friends. His dad was out running errands with the twins, so at least he’d only had one potentially angry parent to contend with.

  Fortunately, Frankie’s mom took to Steve immediately and gave her after-the-fact blessing to the dog-walking arrangement. Unfortunately, she really took to Steve and jumped at the chance to show him all the latest pictures of the twins.

  Frankie was helpless, left to sulk on the love seat while Steve and his mom gabbed away.

  “About six months ago, my then fiancée and I decided to make the big suburban move,” Steve was saying. “We bought this great fixer-upper over on Maple—”

  “Ooh,” Frankie’s mom cooed. “The Cape Cod?”

  “That’s the one. Anyway, two weeks after closing, she dumps me for our real estate agent.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! That’s terrible!” his mom said enthusiastically.

  Steve shrugged. “So now it’s just me and Archie. And a steady stream of contractors, plumbers, electricians, and landscapers.”

  Frankie should have felt relieved. The meeting couldn’t have gone better. But there was just one thing Frankie’s mom still wanted to know.

  “So,” she said to Steve as he was leaving, “I’m guessing you’re single now?”

  Frankie was mortified. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to mention the job to his parents. There was no need for his worlds to intersect. Couldn’t he just have one thing that was his alone?

  “Laying it on kinda thick, weren’t you?” Frankie said when he and Steve were standing on the sidewalk in front of the house.

  “I wasn’t,” Steve said. “Your mom’s nice. And that iced tea was amazing.”

  “Whatever,” Frankie said. “Fresh mint. No big deal. You didn’t have to ask to see my baby pictures, too.”

  “You got off easy,” Steve said, walking back to his car. But then he turned back. “I think not telling her hurt her feelings, though,” he said. “For what it’s worth to you.”

  Frankie could tell Steve wasn’t scolding, just being honest.

  When he came back in the house, Frankie’s mom was on the phone, so he went up to his room and plopped onto his bed.

  His dad returned with the twins a short while later. Pretty soon, Frankie got a knock on his door.

  “Your mom tells me you got yourself a job,” Mr. Figge said from the doorway.

  “She’s mad, isn’t she?” Frankie said.

  “No, not mad,” his dad said, stepping into the room. “Interested. And we both think it’s great that you took initiative. But you know you can’t keep us out of the loop with stuff like that, right?”

  “I know,” Frankie said. “I was busy. Like you’re always busy, between the twins and your new catering business, and I figured …”

  “You feel taken for granted.”

  “No,” Frankie said reflexively. But then, didn’t he? Wasn’t that, maybe, what really bothered him? Everyone assumed that he was game for whatever they wanted from him. Need cardamom? No problem, send Frankie. Forget his plans to play spy with Oliver and Matilda? Sure, why not. Even the twins, with their whole “Frankie, watch!” business, treated him like he had nothing better to do than drop everything when they called. “I mean, yeah. I do, actually.”

  Frankie’s dad sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry, son,” he said.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Frankie said.

  “No, it is. And I want to hear about it.”

  “The thing is, sometimes I worry that I might be, well, a pushover. The kind of person no one takes seriously. You know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” his dad said. “But I promise you that your mom and I take you very seriously. And we appreciate everything you do for this family.”

  “Sure, but that’s what people always say to a pushover, isn’t it?”

  His dad chuckled. “I suppose so.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “How do you know that you’re appreciated by the people in your life?”

  Frankie wasn’t sure until he heard his dad say as much, but that was exactly it. That was the question that had been bothering him lately every time he stepped foot in the house. “Yeah,” he said.

  His father was silent for a long moment. “I wish I had a simple answer. That there was a mathematical formula to calculate an even exchange between how much we give versus how much we get. But life doesn’t work out as neatly as that. Sometimes we give more than we take, and sometimes we take more than we give. But, I find, as long as you have people in your life that you can really count on, it all pretty much works out in the end.”

  Frankie got the sense that his dad wasn’t just talking about him but also about himself. And his mom. Because
if he took a step back and looked at things, his parents were always giving more than they were taking. His dad ran himself ragged doing double-duty with his catering company and being a stay-at-home parent. And his mom put in all those long hours at the lab to keep a steady paycheck coming in. And neither one of them was keeping score; they just counted on each other.

  “Is Mom okay?” Frankie said.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” his dad said.

  “I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” his dad said. “Besides, I think you actually gave her a little project. God help us all.”

  Oliver’s stomach had been in knots all week, but by Friday afternoon it was practically doing backflips in his gut. His mom was upstairs with Mrs. Figge, getting ready for her date with a mysterious stranger who had been stalking them for God knows how long. So when the doorbell rang and Oliver got up to answer it, his knees literally buckled.

  “Good evening,” said the handsome, dashing man in what even Oliver could tell was a very expensive suit. “My name is George Kaplan. You must be Oliver.”

  The man extended his hand and smiled warmly. Oliver took it.

  “Okay. Um, come in,” he managed. Then, remembering Matilda’s directions to play it cool, added, “Please.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Oliver,” Mr. Kaplan said as he stepped inside the house. “Your mother speaks very highly of you.”

  Oliver smiled, a little embarrassed. Even though a voice in the back of his head was saying “don’t buy it,” there was something about this Kaplan guy that made you want him to like you.

  “Well, she’s my mom,” Oliver said. “They’re supposed to do that.”

  “True,” Mr. Kaplan said. “But they don’t always.”

  Though the man’s tone was light, Oliver got the sense that there was something personal behind the remark.

  “Um, my mom’s still getting ready,” Oliver said, leading Mr. Kaplan into the living room. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Might as well. Gives us a chance to talk,” the man said, taking a seat on the couch. “You’re in sixth grade?”

  “Yes, sir,” Oliver said. “Just started a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh my,” Mr. Kaplan said with a chuckle. “Sixth grade. Not the most flattering memories for me, I can tell you that.”

  “Really?”

  “Very awkward time,” Mr. Kaplan said. “For everyone, I imagine. Kids who haven’t had their growth spurt feel tiny and insecure, while the ones who have feel huge and, well, insecure, too.”

  “Which were you?” Oliver said.

  “Well, probably more the second category,” Mr. Kaplan said thoughtfully. “I’d almost reached my adult height by seventh grade, but I had no meat on my bones. I was really just a big head with pipe cleaners for arms and legs. Not a good look.”

  He laughed, and Oliver did, too.

  “More than that, though,” Mr. Kaplan said, “it’s the time everything seems to change. It’s like—”

  “It’s like you start seeing the world for how it really is, instead of how you thought it was always going to be,” Oliver said, finishing the thought.

  Mr. Kaplan looked at Oliver, impressed. “Exactly,” he said.

  Oliver could practically hear Matilda urging him to keep Kaplan talking. “So, um, my mom says you work in venture capitalism. That’s, like, investing in small companies you think might become big companies, right?”

  “That’s right, Oliver. And well put.”

  “How do you know?” Oliver asked, genuinely interested.

  “You mean which ones to bet on? Well, most people will tell you it’s all about crunching the numbers. Graphs, charts, statistics, and all that. And sure, that stuff is important. But if you ask me, the only thing you really need to know is how this thing works,” George Kaplan said, tapping the side of his temple.

  “The brain?” Oliver said.

  “The brain,” Mr. Kaplan said. “If you know how people think, the numbers will take care of themselves. Every time.”

  “So how do people think?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Oliver,” Mr. Kaplan said in a cheesy salesman voice. He was having fun with this, and so was Oliver. “Human behavior isn’t really that hard to predict. It comes down to four elements: what people want, what people need, what people think they want, and what people think they need. With me so far?”

  “Sure,” Oliver said.

  Mr. Kaplan looked around the room, his eyes settling on a plastic water bottle on the kitchen counter. “Perfect,” he said, grabbing the bottle. “Water,” he said. “Everyone needs it, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And people have a virtually limitless supply, right there at the kitchen sink. It couldn’t be easier to get. In fact, it’s so easy to get that people not only don’t want it, they don’t even drink enough of it. But if you do this,” he said, dangling the water bottle playfully in his hand, “it changes everything. When people see the bottle, suddenly they notice a limited amount of water, and they think, I need that. And if you put something on the bottle that tells them this water is special, that it comes from a remote mountain spring or a Polynesian island, people will think …”

  “I want that,” Oliver said, getting it.

  “Yes!” Mr. Kaplan exclaimed, very pleased. “Congratulations, Oliver. That’s all you need to know to take over the world.”

  Oliver couldn’t recall an adult ever speaking to him with such frankness. His own father certainly never had. Mr. Kaplan didn’t have to go to such lengths to explain what he did for a living. But he respected Oliver’s interest and returned it in kind. And in the process, Oliver had impressed him, and that felt good.

  Just then, Oliver’s mom came downstairs with Mrs. Figge. She wore a black dress and her hair up, and Oliver was taken aback by how pretty she looked. But it wasn’t only the clothes or the hair or the makeup. She looked happy, like for the first time in a long while it was okay for her to feel good about herself.

  After Mrs. Figge left, Oliver’s mom gave him the rundown about homework, television, and bed, and then she and Mr. Kaplan left for dinner. Oliver watched them walk to his Town Car, where Mr. Kaplan opened the door for her and said something that made her laugh as she stepped inside.

  Then as he walked around to his side of the car, he looked back at the house and spied Oliver watching from the bay window. If Oliver were a character in a movie, one of those old thrillers, this was when George Kaplan would lock onto Oliver with a sinister look that implied he was violently insane and there was nothing Oliver could do about it.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he gave Oliver a little wave that seemed to say, “Wish me luck?”

  And, despite himself, Oliver did.

  Frankie’s Back * A Brief Appreciation of the Busybody * Mr. Lindo * Archie Misses His Nemesis * Dead End * The Tie That Binds * Google Maps Don’t Lie

  “I don’t know, Matilda,” Oliver said as they unpacked their lunches. “Mr. Kaplan seemed pretty nice.”

  “His story won’t hold for long,” Matilda said confidently. “They never do.”

  “But maybe it’s not a story,” Oliver tried. “Maybe he really is just some guy from Seattle.”

  “Oliver, don’t go all wobbly on me.”

  “I’m not,” Oliver said, a little wobbly. “I’m just saying that my mom … she’s kinda happy now.”

  “All the more reason why we can’t slack off,” Matilda said. “With your mom’s guard down, we need to up our game.”

  “I agree,” Frankie said, plopping down in the chair next to them. Oliver practically did a double take.

  “You do?” Matilda asked hesitantly.

  “Absolutely,” Frankie said. “I’ve been thinking. And the way I see it, if Matilda’s right, then you and your mom are in danger. If she’s wrong, then we just waste a few days making fools of ourselves.” Frankie took a bite of his sandwich and leaned back in his chair, impressed with his own lo
gic.

  “Um … thanks, Frankie,” Matilda said.

  “Okay, then,” Oliver said. “What’s next?”

  Matilda gave the question serious thought (well, as serious as a person can be while holding a juice pouch). “Does this Kaplan guy carry his wallet in his pants or his jacket?”

  “What? Jacket, I think. Why? Hey, wait a minute,” Oliver said, catching on. “No way!”

  “If I can get a look at his driver’s license, it would really help.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Just take a picture of it on your phone and put it back. Easy.”

  “Right,” Oliver said. “Easy.”

  Matilda, overlooking his tone, turned her attention to Frankie. “Now, Frankie. Your new dog-walking job is the perfect cover for recon and surveillance.”

  “It is?”

  “Definitely. It’s a good bet that these people have set up their base of operation within a two-mile radius of Oliver’s house.”

  “So, you want me to walk the dog two miles in every direction looking for black Lincoln Town Cars.”

  “Very good, Frankie,” Matilda said.

  “I’m not just another pretty face,” Frankie said.

  Matilda said, “A concentric pattern around the neighborhood would be most efficient—” She stopped herself, aware, perhaps, of her tendency to be a little bossy. “Actually, for now just try to change your route from day to day, if you can …”

  She trailed off as she noticed several kids had started holding up their sandwiches in a kind of salute to their table. “Guys,” she said, a little unnerved. “Why are people doing that?”

  The boys looked around. Oliver’s head sagged. “I just wish they’d stop already.”

  “Seriously?” Frankie laughed. “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?” Being out of the loop was clearly a new and not enjoyable experience for Matilda.

  “I can’t believe it,” Frankie said, surprised. “You’re like the only person in school who doesn’t—”

  “I’ve been a bit distracted, lately,” she snapped.

  “Okay, okay,” Frankie said, dropping it. “You know how Billy Fargus lost all feeling in his face a couple of weeks ago after taking Oliver’s lunch?”